CA report
Here is a kayak fishing report from the red triangle.
Ocean fishing for rockfish opened on May 1st south of the pigeon point lighthouse. So naturally I went fishing at the lighthouse on May 5th. This spot is about 20 miles further south than where I wanted to fish. It was a protected launch but you are exposed to the swell, chop, and wind after a short paddle. I found a small patch of kelp and threw out the drift anchor. This was an essential piece of gear under the conditions. I made a bunch of short drifts through the kelp and finally managed to nail a couple of fish.
I bought a new gps so that I could keep myself on the legal side of all the closures and marine reserves in this farking state. I also paid $20 to upgrade google earth so that I can dowload my tracks. This is a pretty sweet way to show where you have been fishing. I wasn't smart enough to actually mark the spot where I caught my fish but I will next time.
Ocean fishing for rockfish opened on May 1st south of the pigeon point lighthouse. So naturally I went fishing at the lighthouse on May 5th. This spot is about 20 miles further south than where I wanted to fish. It was a protected launch but you are exposed to the swell, chop, and wind after a short paddle. I found a small patch of kelp and threw out the drift anchor. This was an essential piece of gear under the conditions. I made a bunch of short drifts through the kelp and finally managed to nail a couple of fish.
I bought a new gps so that I could keep myself on the legal side of all the closures and marine reserves in this farking state. I also paid $20 to upgrade google earth so that I can dowload my tracks. This is a pretty sweet way to show where you have been fishing. I wasn't smart enough to actually mark the spot where I caught my fish but I will next time.
posted by brian | 2:53 PM
12 Comments:
I forgot to mention a couple of things.
1) those rockfish were awesome. Nice thick fillets and the meat was excellent.
2) I was visited by quite a few sealions. If you guys want to show up with the heavy gear I'll secure some cut bait.
Nice Fish. They look wierd. I can imagine it is cold. Do sealions have mustaches?
Excellent Report, especially the visual aids
I looked into GPS units a bit, but gave up when I couldn't find good topographical maps that didn't cost extra hundreds of dollars beyond the cost of the GPS.
How does the Google Earth interact, can you actually see the satellite images on the GPS screen or only when you get back home and sync the GPS with a real computer?
It was cold that morning. The water temp is still 48 - 50. The air temp was right around 50 degrees and there was a stiff breeze. I have probably spent $500 on neoprene, a dry top, and miscellaneous synthetic clothing since I started yaking in CA.
I believe that sealions have whiskers but I wouldn't call it a mustache.
Regarding the GPS...
I spent a long time looking at GPS receivers and I was very frustrated with the price and lack of useful features. I settled on an older Garmin model, GPSMap76. It has the basic features that I wanted: waterproof, pc compatible, tracks, waypoints, etc. The basemap is not very impressive but I bought it for kayaking so I don't care. It does have celestial info (sunrise/set, tides & hunting/fishing prime times) which I think is a great feature.
If you upgrade to google earth plus ($20/year) it supports all garmin & magellan receivers. Google EArth recognizes when you plug in your GPS and it automatically saves all waypoints, routes, & tracks to a temporary folder. You can then rename and save the data that you want. My GPS came with a serial cable so I had to spend an additional $35 for an adaptor for USB ports. It was a pain in the ass but I think it will be cool to see where I paddled and where I caught fish. I should mention that I bought this factory reconditioned GPS on eBay for $100. This older model is still selling for $180 everywhere else.
Gettin pretty high tech aint ya? Must be strange to go fishing durring a "season" isnt it? So when are you gonna head back to our fair state where folks dont need wetsuits except for 3 weeks in Jan?
Ps, what is the chosen bait? looks like a jig of some nature, tipped? And sofar as the sea lions go, what sort of terminal tackle does one use for them, and when is the season? I imagine they are like the whitting of the left coast, good to eat and good for bait?
I used to do a lot of fishing on the southern Oregon coast for the same type of fish. We would use shrimp flys -- 3 at a time and some times we would catch three of these "black snapper" at a time. We put on a heavy weight and the flies were tied above it about a foot apart. We lowered it to about mid water depth and let the boat movement do all the action. It was great.
As for sealions, I did successfully hook and land one. I don't recommend this to anyone -- especially in a kayak. We were in a 30 foot center console, and there is absolutely not enough room to get away. The bait of choice was a dead smelt.
How is it that I never heard the story of Alan landing a sealion? Is it possible that maybe you were down wind from TPD and caught a sea robin and just thought it was a sealion?
it's cause I was a youngster and I forgot about it until i saw the rock fish picture then all these other memories came flooding back.
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Yeah Alan, you are right on about the shrimp fly. I was going to name it a DDFR (for double drop feather rig). It is very similar to the DDNR except that there are feathers snelled to the hooks. You are supposed to tip the hooks with squid or some other bait but it isn't necessary for rockfish. I'm glad that I jogged your memory. Be sure to post any other flashbacks that you have.
Chris, I am ready for some warm gulf water and open beaches! I'll look into flights for the next big trip.
Shrimp flys used with weights? This is blasphemy. Get a fly rod and a sinking line and do it right! -tpd
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